17830/Blood & Horror (The Astley Signal)

Blood & Horror (The Astley Signal)
Date of Scene:	02 May 2024
Location:	Burnley - Bleake Island
Synopsis:	When a piece of sabotaged anti-mutant tech phones home, the Queen who commissioned it is surprised to find none other than Sabretooth on the other side. Dripping with gore, he listens as she pitches him her vision for the future.
Cast of Characters:	Victor Creed, Lorna Dane

---

Victor Creed has posed:
    It had gone almost well. For Victor, that is. It had not gone anywhere near well for the others.

    The contract had been lucrative but discretion had been specified. Requested. And at first, he had been. Tracking the quarry, a fairly disliked member of one of the mob families, just below the cusp of respectability that would render him permanently untouchable. But close enough that he was a dicey target, and Victor's employers were nervous about it tracking back to them. Victor assured them he could prevent that concern.

    A few calls had found another couple of takes, and Victor got to engage in his favorite practice - triple dipping. He had the means to make it appear to be any of the three parties available, and it was just a question of which one would be paying him less. The other two would be pleased enough.

    But he did not know that one of the lieutenant's two guards was a rabid fan of the FOH. And had what he thought was anti-mutant tech. Why? Unclear. But the point was, he had it, and after Victor had taken out the first guard, and just as fluidly run his talons through the throat of his quarry, this thug turned what he _thought_ was a mutant control collar towards Victor.

    As Victor stood over the bodies, his FOH friend not even likely to be IDed with dental records, he licks at his talon in thought. No frame-job here, he thinks to himself. This is going to get blamed on a mutant, for sure. But which mutant?

    Victor shrugs, crouching down and collects some of the blood from the more mutilated body and paints the word 'MUTIE' on the forehead of the other thug. Hate breaks up happy work teams just as much as anything else.

Lorna Dane has posed:
Such awful luck: you spend months, maybe even years internalizing the sins of mutantkind down to the last detail. You make the right connections; you go to the right shows; you suck up to the right guy, and eventually, you get your hands on the good stuff.

The stuff that makes those mutie fucks just like any other asshole.

You're proud of yourself, because you've finally seen beyond the veil. You're thrilled, because after all that time spent soaking in the stories of brave men standing up to the genetic menace, you're that much closer to being a story for some guy in need of a jolt in five, ten years. And let's not even get started on what reversing this thing could do for the crew-- what it could do for you, for your place in it. Nevermind the kind of business a guy could get going if he could crack this thing.

Mostly, you're just excited for the first genetrash cocksucker who tries you to find out who's really in charge. You wanna see the look in their eyes when they realize they're fucked-- when you haul 'em in to see the boss so they can get broken down and busted out for every last penny they're worth.

You wanna feel what Graydon Creed (the REAL president) must feel every day of his goddamn life.

And then the moment comes: some big, red-eyed motherfucker's come by to rip through the crew because that's what these animals do. They kill decent humans just making a living for their families. Every muscle's tense; the collar's open, the retractable chain's in hand, spinning fiercely as the animal rips Marco's throat out with its bare hands. You throw it-- and goddamnit, it HITS. It snaps SHUT around the mutie's neck; it clicks. The red light near its locking seam shines vividly; a shrill, crunchy tone begins to play--

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4hsGK8A1qY

What you don't know - couldn't have known - is that that guy you got the collar from? The guy HE got the collar from's on the other side. That this guy, this collar-maker was born and raised on Genosha, and even though he was fortunate enough to explore his passion for engineering once its borders opened, he could never have forgotten that design.

    ~*~*~

The chain's still taut in the meatsack's hands as the collar chimes on.

All of the blood has drained from his face.

Victor Creed will find it.

    ~*~*~

The collar will not stop playing until the primary battery dies or it's destroyed. One way or another, it won't be long: the charge is low. It doesn't need much operating time; just enough to reach way, way, way out into space to make a connection.

And send a signal.

The portal that stretches across the floor half a minute after silence falls is not the collar's fault, at least not directly: it's just the side-effect of a job well done.

"Oh," Polaris exhales, squinting around as she walks upstairs through the portal, from the other side of the world, in a lightweight version of royal garb sans the grand, bristling cape composed of countless shards of purple metal: an emerald-colored breastplate, matching boots, and lighter tights underneath. All of it has the distinct, if subtle sheen of metal.

"Huh--"

Her eyes fall, inevitably, on Sabretooth.

"-- ah."

She exhales slowly, bracing internally.

"Victor-- you're doing pro bono, now?"

Victor Creed has posed:
    Victor had barely had time to fully grasp the utter failure of the collar and just what exactly this scene would look like after he left when the portal appears, and the Queen herself manifests.

He snorts at her question. "Got three different families paying me for this hit." He gives the mafioso a kick. The paid target. "This other guy, he just got on my fucking nerves." He turns and looks over the Queen of Genosha for a moment, eyes up and down as he considers her royal accoutrements. "What brings you to this filthy part of the world? Decided to slum it with those of us who get our hands..."

    Victor holds up his hands. There are a multitude of options. Dirty? Bloody?

    "...into things."

Lorna Dane has posed:
"Astley signal went off."

Polaris doesn't move a muscle. A soft tapping sound resonates from the collar, indicating it.

"I didn't expect to find it in..."

Victor explains--

"... some mafia asshole's hands?" comes with bemusedly arched brows. She shrugs; they lower. "So this ISN'T a..."

She gestures, briefly.

"... politically motivated thing, say," comes with a pointed look into his eyes.

"We're both slumming it."

Victor Creed has posed:
    A glance back down towards the barely recognizeable 'muscle'. "Politically? No. Just some guy who got his hands on something he didn't understand, and..." Victor turns back to regard Lorna. "Sorry if I ruined your sting with me..." He gives the man another kick.

    "Since you're here and all, you want to give me a ride? I kind of..." He looks down at his blood splattered clothing. "Less subtle than I thought I would be on my departure." He peers and prods at the collar as he hands it back over towards Lorna. "Shiny, though."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Polaris doesn't say one way or another, about the sting. She just takes the collar with a nod and a mild, gracious smile; two seconds of screeching and folding later, it's an ugly, knotted baseball-sized chunk that she's idly tossing in hand as she leads the way back downstairs--

-- through the western wall of a cavernous, metal-clad space where other portals periodically wink in and out of existence courtesy of teleporters, and onto a catwalk.

"Like I said," comes with a glance over and up at the feral mutant, "you're slumming it: playing mob guys against each other for a couple extra dollars? Mutilating a couple random enforcers...?" Green brows arch as she tips her head to one side, curious and appraising all at once.

"You can do better, Sabretooth," is the assessment that follows.

"Not that I blame you: the Brotherhood's been on stand-by for years, now."

Victor Creed has posed:
"Pay's nice, though."

Victor does his best to not look at all impressed by the display, either of Polaris' power or the space into which he followers her. It seems convincing, but how much of that is him playing the tough guy is unclear.

He regards her as she regards him, tilting his head as he considers her words. Curious, at first, until she follows up, and then he finds himself nodding in agreement. "I told them dropping the Evil part just makes them less scary. We're not a brotherhood that gets together to drink beer, sing songs, and player poker. We're supposed to be a force for ... " He thinks for a moment. He catches himself before he says good. "We needed to make people understand not to fuck with us, and all we've done is bent over whenever they've asked. It's fucking embarassing if you ask me."

His eyes move over Lorna again, sizing up the Queen. "I'm gonna assume that you have an idea of _how_ I can do better, your majesty?"

Lorna Dane has posed:
"The 'Evil' part is pure branding-- Magneto took it on to make a point," the Queen replies. "To heighten the contradictions, make people take their sides as fast as possible-- see who'd fall on their faces in the process. The point wasn't to be evil: it was to be the boogeyman they made us out to be so hard that they'd crack."

Up near the ceiling, an observation and control deck protrudes from one wall; Victor can see technicians humming around, maintaining the flow of organizing steady translocating without snapping local spacetime in half from sheer stress. Somewhere else, out of sight, teleporters cycle in and out of rigs designed to help them focus utterly on the task of opening gates; Creed can probably hear them and their tightly controlled breaths emanating from somewhere in the darkness beneath the catwalk.

"I'm not him, and I don't care all that much about playing word games-- or crushing humanity underfoot, frankly," she continues, leading the way towards a staircase spiraling to an upper level. "We're a force for Mutants, full stop, but all we've been doing is playing nice and praying; I'm tired of it.

"Mystique is tired of it.

"And you... maybe you don't give a shit about politics, but that--"

Polaris glances behind them, gesturing towards the now empty space they just came from.

"-- back there," falls a notch lower.

Deeper, as if she's trying to project the sentiment all the way to the core of the man.

"I know that's not enough for you."

To the beast that snarls and snaps and laps at its bloody jaws.

"Is it?"

She lets him have a moment to think before continuing:

"Wherever they're hiding, the ones who make the things they use to hunt us; wherever they're exploiting our bodies to make their empires-- wherever they're planning our extermination... I want to hunt them down," still low and exacting, making every last word as clear - as sharp - as can be.

"We can share the future with humanity, but not all of them get to come."

Victor Creed has posed:
There is little attention or focus paid behind him, as Victor's vision remains upon Lorna. For him it is as much about the other senses than it is the words she is speaking. Her poise. Her scent as she does so. His sense of a person comes largely from them. Words lie. Bodies don't.

"So you need the ultimate predator to hunt them down." Victor does not speak with arrogance, but with confidence. Few would dispute that. Even fewer who might think to would dare to. He runs his tongue over his fangs as he studies Lorna. "You think you can inspire enough to take on the mission? Others have tried, I gotta say, and you've got a lot of potential, but...you know I'm not much of a team player."

Lorna Dane has posed:
The scent's faintly floral and woody, thanks to a mix of products.

The posture: rigid, with a strong affect of confidence.

And the words-- not their content, but their character, their tenor--

They burn, quietly; persistently, licking at the cage a Queen must keep around her inner-most feelings lest they spill out and taint her people. Even caged, the heat's palpable: she wasn't in Mutant Town, but she heard.

And she was at the Starport besieged by nations of the world to drive helpless refugees away, demonstrating exactly what the worst of humanity thinks of anyone who falls outside of it.

"I think it's change or die time," comes with a steel-eyed look into the predator's eyes, "for us, and for them. Genosha's proof of what we could have if we try -- and what will happen if we reach too far, without cleaning up all of the messes they've made for us. People are hungry for a chance to work again-- REALLY work; the Blob has been reaching out to the old generation to see if they're ready to eat too."

Victor Creed has posed:
"Hmm."

Victor Creed is not generally a man for words. Listening or speaking. He knows what he needs to know from studying Lorna. Her speech rolls over him, but he can smell that conviction. Taste the desperation.

"You never quite had a place for me here." It is not a condemnation, statement of fact. "I am not saying I don't know why. I get it. I'm the guy the most extreme look at and say..." He shrugs.

"Now, though. You starting to see it my way. Or at least, starting to see what I bring to the table." One again, that tongue runs across his fangs.

"Question is, are you inviting me to the table, or are you just asking me to clear it off for you?" He tilts his head. "Once I've cleaned up all the shit you need cleaned up...and you don't need me anymore. What then?"

He looks her in the eyes. "I ain't saying no, if that's the case. To be clear. I can come, do your shit, and leave, but I want to know going in that's how it's gonna be. Or if there's more..." He nods. "You tell me what the more is."

Lorna Dane has posed:
"What then?"

Lorna's hand braces against a railing as she pauses to look over at him, brows lifting.

"When every threat to our existence has been wiped out?

"When no Mutant's unjustly imprisoned?

"When the rest of the world sees us and finally -- finally -- decides that our sovereignty's worth respecting? That our lives count as much as theirs do?

"When the ugly work is done, and all there's left is thriving...?"

Stepping closer, looking deep into the predator's eyes, Lorna's voice has fallen to a steel-jacketed whisper.

"You live," is the answer, succinct and weighted.

"Follow your passion. Start a farm; start a blog. Rip out more mob spines..."

Again, her head cants as she takes a moment to study him with narrowing eyes.

"Unless you're trying to tell me that you've got more for my table than blood and horror," she posits, thoughtfully.

Most of Lorna's post-mutation life was spent among the X-Men, with her membership in the Brotherhood being one part legacy and one part an olive branch in times when she felt a little less cynical about the future. She knows Creed as Sabretooth, the monster who even Logan gets anxious about dealing with. She knows him as the dirty secret everyone preferred to skip over when talking about all the good the Brotherhood was doing for Mutant Town.

She knows him as danger incarnate, and now that he's looming over her, soaked in gore and hunting for his place in a new order...

... now is when just how little she knows about him hits.

"Unless I was right," she tests, "that ripping out throats for pocket change is beneath you."

Victor Creed has posed:
Victor is not _trying_ to loom over Lorna. There are certainly times when he uses his physicality to intimidate, but now? He is playing it straight with the ruler of Genosha. Or as straight as he comes.

"Those pockets fit a lot of change."

He cracks a grin, showcasing those fangs once more, as he looks down at her. "You're trying psychology that would work on most people, but it don't do shit for me. But you're also not wrong, I'm not only motivated by money and greed. It's just that I don't often find anything else worthy of..."

He wrinkles his nose. Pausing for a moment of thought. "People tolerate me for what I can do, and barely that. And that's ok, because I realize I ain't what most people want to see staring across the table at them. Honestly, sometimed I'd be worried if anybody did." He shrugs. "Doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to see something different. I can handle shit on my own, I'm probably one of the best there is at that. Don't have to like it, though."

"The one thing I can promise you is that I do what I do. You know what it is, and you know what it means. I don't half ass things, and I don't dance on someone's leash. You want what I am, you get what I am. And I believe in yhour cause, and if you're ready to use me, then fucking use me."

His lips twist into a smile. "Abuse me too, if you'd like."

'Lorna Dane has posed:
Silently, Lorna peers into lethal slash that cuts across Sabretooth's primal features, weighing his pitch in full. A beat passes.

Another.

A portal opens in the distance.

Another beat--

"I'm not my father, Victor," is her eventual answer, crisp and even as she tips her chin up.

"If I abuse you, it'll be because you deserve it."

Turning from Creed, she resumes pacing towards the egress stairs. "Otherwise... if you're with me, you're with me-- and I'm with you. As long as you can behave while you're here -- keep your worst impulses confined to the world outside Genosha's shores -- then I'm happy to keep a seat for you at my table. I'll make sure Raven knows that you're ready to work -- for real," she promises, followed by a brief look towards him.

"And I'll see about finding some meat for you, soon. Finding an angle on the United States military and any secret weapons programs it's got going is... that's not a tomorrow thing; but there's plenty of bastards to snack on in the meantime."

Victor Creed has posed:
"Thank heavens for that." Hard to tell if Victor is that down on Magneto or if there is some other meaning here, but either way, his appreciation for Lorna _seems_ genuine. Even if potentially misguided, as the grin that follows her confirmation is likely unsettling to most. "I promise I'll earn it."

He walks along with her, nodding as she lays out her parameters. "Logan's the one who can't control himself. I just _look_ like I can't control myself. You tell me where not to shit, I won't shit there. Here, outside, wherever." He glances around the place once more before allowing his gaze to settle on Lorna once more.

"You wanna call the shots, you call the shots. Just remember that I only go at one volume, and you've seen that first hand." It's still on his shirt and pants, if she had already forgotten. "You keep my busy, I'll keep you satisfied."

He wrinkles his nose again. "Then after all this shit gets settled, we'll see how interesting your table can be."

He nods to her, as if to seal the deal. "Long as you know, and understand, what you're getting."